I’ve been in site for almost two weeks now. So far so good. My Spanish is coming along slowly, but it is nevertheless improving. I´m just now starting to experience homesickness, ya know the classic ‘grass is greener on the otherside’. Lately i´ve been doubting myself, why im here, am I wasting two of my prime years when there are other things I´d like to be doing as well?

Anywho. Its all just part of the adjustment proccess. Anyone who knows me, knows how extremely indecisive I am.

Of all the things I miss, I think the most about rock climbing, athough I didn’t climb very much in the last year, (compared to in the past)
I never thought I’d miss the feel of burning muscles. I think the reason why I miss it so much is because its one of the few ways I’ve found that I can truly relax. On reflection over my college career, climbing really relieved my stress in a healthy and functional manner. Many of my fondest memories surround climbing, and or the friends I made through the sport. There is something soothing about hanging from a cliff overlooking the hills, tree, lakes, rivers, where your only worry is where to put your hand, foot, how to position you body for the next move. For others this would be their absolute worst night mare, but for some reason it just jived with me.

Next on the list of things I miss are Cheddar cheese, salt and vinegar chips, maine coast, the climate, blueberries, Spencer’s Ice-cream up in Millford, my family and friends (of course), the smell of fresh cut grass, swimming in clean water, showers, chocolate, snow, and raspberries. Its strange, I never know what random smell, sight, sound provokes thoughts from home, or travels elsewhere. I didn’t realize how proud of being a Mainer I am until one of the other volunteers from a large city out west, was trying to claim that people from the country are less prepared for life as a volunteer because we have less access to cultural diversity. This of course initiated a huge argument ending with the other volunteer attempting to shame me of my mainer-ness. I´d rather be from maine anyday, than from a pretentious fake star struck community. (personally I think we´re better prepared since we´ve had to learn to go-without electricicrty, water, or constant entertainment at somepoint in our lives. I´d like to think we as mainers have pretty thick skin)

Well the pig flu has many people here concerned. While in the united states we have access to antiviral medications and facemasks are cheep, that is not the case here. Much of the population is already either sick or malnourished, leaving the population vulnerable. Antivirals are non-exhistant here, and the face masks can be out of some peoples economic means. As peacecorps volunteers, we are provided with both the antiviral meds, and face masks. Its, in a way, hard not to feel bad that we have access to these, while the people we are living with, and working with don’t.

Back a while in training, I ran into a spring break group, who was here working on a biofuel stove project. During conversations one young lady expressed this opinion ‘ I would so much rather worry about where im going to get water for the day, than like, stressing out about a parking spot.’ Anyone who knows me, probably has a vague idea of my reaction to such a condescending and silly statement. What do you all think about this? Does she have a point, or is this merely trivializing the difficulty of life here? Personally it makes it seem like the people here want to have a life where they have to choose daily between bathing, and washing clothes. I doubt anyone would choose to go without the basic foundation of life on earth. Perhaps I miss understood her, but upon further discussion, it really seemed that shed give up everything to haul water everyday. Seems rather ungrateful really. So that’s a legitimate-hazel-rant.

Well, all here is still dry, but it seems that in the next couple weeks, we should enter our winter aka 6 months of rain. I’m looking forward to it. The landscape should brighten up, the temperature should cool down, and maybe night rain will drown out the noises of barking dogs and crowing roosters long enough for me to sleep!

We´re still in mango season. Ya know they have mangoes here the size of footballs! They´re called papaya mango. Amazing. I´ve only seen them, and have yet to taste one, but from all sources it’s a worthwhile investment.

Anyone feel like sending me some modge-podge?

how is all stateside? somebody should leave me a comment, I want to know what you all think of my blog!

Its offical, Im now a volunteer!

Hello all!
since writing last, I´ve managed to visit granada, and swim in a volcanoe crater, eat a ton of fresh mangos and avocados, and sweat about a gallon a day. We're currently in the hottest part of the year, and my site happens to be in the hottest part of the country, and temperatures are abnormally high, and there is a nation wide warning out. Being a Mainer its been an adjustment to say the least. (funny to say I actually miss the rain, snow, sleet, mud and wind)


I've been in site for two days now. I would post photos, but it looks like the electronic-technical gods have bathed me in their wrath as of late. My laptop is, as far as I can tell, completely dead, and my camera is refusing to load photos.

I´ve spent the last two days traveling to surrounding communities on the annual vaccination campaign. I've been administering vitamin A and de-parasite pills. all the children cry and scream, a side effect of the drops and pills tasting attrocious.
No matter how many kids I see get sticked in the butt, I still cringe a little.

Its heart breaking, on day one, I had to hold back from crying upon the arrival of each kid that came in. Here they have an 80 percent rate of maluntrition in kids under the age of 5. The diet is very limited, and access to a variety of vegitables is limited. A normal meal consists of rice, tortilla, beans, and queso. Food is normally fried, with either a ton of salt, or sugar. The kids who come in, have the classic tell tale signs of grave malnutrition, yellow crispy hair,moon face, big tummys, and emaciated limbs. Many have plenty of energy, and desire to play, investigate, and just be all around a normal kid (like any child of course). Its just tough to see so many children suffering from a perfectly preventable illness.

anywho thats been depressing enough for now.

My site is great. I have two swimming pools, three ice-cream shops, two cybers, and lots of little pulperias. Chinandega the second largest city in nicaragua is only two hours away by bus, and one by ambulance (if i can manage to hitch a ride). There I have access to banking, and plenty of grocery stores, as well as cheap clothing, and access to busses going all over the country. I have friends serving in and around chinandega, and if it comes down to it, I have plenty of opticions when it comes to being around other americans. In a couple weeks in Corinto, about 10 min west of chinandega, there will be a seafood festival. I'm already planning on splurging.

all in all, so far so good.

the previous volunteer has left me with a bed, a water dispenser, cooking supplies, wash basin and random soaps, tupperware, and a fridge. All in all, I am suffieciently set up to find my own place, minus a mattress and a stove. I´m thinking that I will prefer to live with a family, as it will help me improve my spanish, provide company and security.

In regards to my spanish I failed to meet the compentency levels by one step. I made it to intermediate low, rather than intermediate medium.I can understand most of what is said to me, and for the most part convey what I need to say. I like to say I regurgitate words and hope that they fall together in the appropriate tense, and conjugation. Oh well for 6 years of spanish class. I´ve been told that the number of years of class is in no way an indicator of spanish compentency. Those that are more advanced have all lived-studied abroad in a spanish speaking country. I opted not to study in a spanish speaking country, but am glad I did study where I did. I still have two years to improve my spanish.

What else to report. I´m staying with a family for the manditory six weeks, before I can move into my own place. I live with a school teacher, her grandson, and her grandfather. we have a latrine, and water sporatically. (speaking of which i should go do my laundry while we have water). They are wonderfully kind and patient (I have a hard time understanding the grandfather, as well as the grandson).

for the swearing in ceremony, which we had at a swanky hotel (although we didnt spend the night there, understandably)was full of pomp and circumstance. But fun pomp and circumstance. The minister of health was there, Our ambassador had lots of inspiring words for us. there was decent food and drink. All of us could bring two members of our host family, my host mother and her son in law came. It was hard to say goodbye to them. They are wonderful people who really opened their homes and hearts to me (yes that sounds soooo cliche). They´ve had 10 different trainees stay with them, and they seem to treat each with the same level of enthusiasm and passion. The event was exciting, but bittersweat saying good bye to everyone we´ve spent the last three months with, but its exciting to finally start the work we signed up to do.

Oh, and I´ve added some pictures from swearing in, one with my host fam, another with my language instructors.

Well ta ta for now!

Hazel

Last week of training

Well, I've made it 2.5 months of my 27 here. Hopefully the next three go as quickly as the first few have.

Well yesterday myself and five other trainees went to lagoon apoyo, which is a lagoon situated in the top of an extinct volcanoe. So I had the opportunity to swim in a volcano!

On the 13 of april, we'll be leaving our training towns, for swearing in in managua. then the 15th we head to our sites! it's going to be a hard lonely transition I think. these last three months, we've had other trainees around us, and classes daily. Now we'll be all on our own, without classes, or schedules (which I'm looking forward too, I had thought I was done with school!!)

we are starting semana santa, which celebrates easter week. Its the biggest holiday here, more so than christmas. It also happens to coorelate with mango and avocado season. Celebrating, and good food! Many people head to the beach for the weekend, and the schools close down for the week.


pictures, avocados on the tree. A small fundraising event for my host family's church, vending food and fresh fruit.

Hello!

so four of the 8 puppies have been given away. I'll miss them, but not the noise!

Communicating has started to become frustraiting, since I'm particularly lazy about verb conjucation. I'll be working on that over the next few weeks. April 15th I'll be moving to my site. It will be sad to leave my training town, and the other trainees. But I'm looking forward to starting work!

not too much new to report. Went to the beach today which was well needed! The waves were bigger than expected, making for some exciting attempts at body surfing!

Take care!

Hazel

so those pictures are, lunch one day (with out beans and rice(gallo-pinto)) the largest volcano in country (i forget the name) and two of the puppies about a week ago

We recieved our site placements monday. I will be heading to the north western part of the country to Chinandega. Its very hot, has the countries largest volcanoe, and I will be about an hour and a half from the ocean! I leave on friday for a week long site visit,then three more weeks of training, then I become an official Peace Corps Volunteer!

We started working with our youth group on their mini-proyecto, painting the benches in the park with health related messages. first run was a disaster. I was MIA due to my first bout of nicaraguan bacteria, but apparently giving a group of 10 kids from the ages of 8-11 paint brushes and paint, and letting them have a free for all is a bad idea. oops. So damage control is going well, and we all have learned alot about planning, and the like. the park looks good, and tomorrow we'll wrap the project up with our youth!

SO Im really excited to be heading to my site. The immediate town I'm going to has about 6,000 people, and the whole municipality has 28,000. I'll be working in the rural and urban parts. My three main objectives are to work on education of teen pregnancy, AIDS and STI's, and Mother-Child health-mortality-morbidity.
the advocatos will be ripe soon (which is really exciting) we're also hitting up mango season as we speak. when they're a little green still, they can be eaten, peeled and cut with salt. tasty!
ALSO I changed the settings so hopefully people can now post comments here!
Hows life state side? any interesting news?

Spell checker down and out. beware of spelling errors.

hello all!

tomorrow we have our site fair. this is a day in which representatives from each department in the country comes together and we discuss the possible site assignements. we find out in two weeks (i think) where we will be going!

I celebrated my 24th birthday here, which will be one to remeber! My host sister's birthday happened to be the day after mine so we had a joint celebration. Her husband has a mariachi group, so they made a surprise appreance for us. the entire extended family showed up, as did the other trainees in the town. we ate food listened to music. The day was a bit sad though, because my host sisters father passed away in mid January (three days before I got in country) and his birthday was the same as mine. It also was exactly one month since his death. my family is quite religous, and that has been an anchor point for them, and they all seem to be resiliant people, very caring, and unselfish.

last week was also the week of the patron saint. the town I'm in is represented by the Virgin Mary, so there were parades and statues of her all around our little town. On the first day of celebrations people from all over the country came with their horses to show them off. I didnt quite understand the meaning of it all, but it was highly entertaining to watch the men attempt to hold the reigns in one hand to control the horses, and drink beer, (tona) in the other. It was a pretty easy going celebration, and like in any part of the world was a chance for people to let loose a bit, and step away from the difficulties of daily life. at the end of the week, there was also bull riding. this consisted of one man on a bull, and twenty others in the ring harrasing it.

the puppies have opened their eyes, and are starting to waddle around a bit. Sometime I'll post pictures when I get to a compter which will accept my zip-drive. All 8 have survived thus far. no one is really sure what their fate will be in the next few months, but some of my fellow trainees have expressed interested in maybe aquiring one.

Spanish is comming along slowly. it really is true that for every day spent speaking english, is a step backwards. It really does feel like two steps forward and one step back. But all is well. I've been told that most learning occurs once in site, and speaking english is no longer an option.

thats all I can think of for now.

Hope all are happy, healthy, and safe.

miss you all!

Hazel

hello all!

not much new, still taking classes, and having technical sessions. my little training town, has been really windy and dusty as of late, but it lets up enough to go running some mornings.

at my home, we just had puppies, 8! we now have 11 dogs, three birds and a cat! they{re fun, and ive been trying to train on of the older dogs.

my spanish is comming along but very slowly, I just need to be more assertive about practicing and it will come along.

well i know this hasnt been very interesting to read thus far. one of these days ill sit down and write a real post!

take care

hazel